NFB says Malthouse 'no build' admission is 'bad news' for the industry

Richard Beresford, chief executive of the National Federation of Builders (NFB), has described as “bad news for the UK’s housing market” the government’s admission that it has not built a single starter home despite a promise made four years ago to put up 200,000 by next year. 

Responding to comments made by the housing minister Kit Malthouse that no starter homes had been built since the Tory party committed in its 2015 manifesto to putting up 200,000 such units by 2020, Beresford said the programme could have delivered some planning certainty, since it would have added work to local pipelines.

“But Malthouse’s admission explains why developers were not sure how they could get involved with starter homes. It exposes the poor level of trust between ministers and SME housebuilders.

“The government must rethink how it should work with the wider industry, and not just a few volume house builders. It must figure out whether it really wants to build affordable homes or just win plaudits for acknowledging the problem and appearing to try,” Beresford added.

Admitting the government had yet to build one start home, which would have been exclusively for first-time buyers at a 20% discount on their market value, despite spending £250m from a £1.2bn fund on land, Malthouse told politics news website PoliticsHome the programme had been more difficult to get off the ground than anticipated.

“But there is significant work going on to try to land it alongside some of the other effectively discounted sale products we are looking at,” he said.

Rico Wojtulewicz, head of housing and planning policy at the House Builders Association, said: “The government has let SMEs down by promising a scheme that we were best suited to deliver but never engaging with us to deliver it.

“As refreshing as Malthouse’s honesty is it comes too late, particularly as starter homes were included in the most recent revision to planning policy.”